Brilliant birder brought vision to life

Long recognized as one of the most accomplished and knowledgeable birders in the Metro East, McCall died this spring, on April 9, at the age of 90. The Watershed Nature Center is located in the heart of Edwardsville.

The late John and Kay Kendall of Edwardsville first proposed turning the city of Edwardsville’s old sewage treatment lagoon on the north end of town into a delightful sanctuary for wildlife and native plants..

“Jack was a principal in the creation of Watershed from the very beginning,” said Russell Reed of Edwardsville, his longtime friend. “He was friends with John and Kay Kendall. They and Jack really drove the whole concept and made it happen.”

Watershed opened in 1991, and McCall became a fixture there, regularly walking its trails and birding, often with his wife, Virginia “Ginger” McCall.

“The community owes Jack and Ginger both a great debt for working with John and Kay Kendall to create Watershed, which is a treasure for the community,” Reed said.

Jack McCall already had a long and distinguished career before becoming involved in Watershed. Born John McCall in Raleigh, N.C., in 1924, he served during World War II as a weather observer in the U.S. Army Air Force, including in the Pacific Theater on Okinawa.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, his master’s degree in counseling from Columbia University in New York City, and his doctorate in psychology from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

McCall held teaching positions at Emory University in Atlanta, at the University of Minnesota, at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh and at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

He came to the fledgling Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 1965 and spent the last 25 years of his academic career there, retiring in 1989 as emeritus professor.

McCall developed his love of nature, and especially of birds, during his youth in North Carolina. Over the course of his life, he logged more than 1,000 different bird species all over North America, as well as Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Central America and Western Europe.

He was a longtime member of the Great Rivers Chapter of the Illinois Audubon Society and the Piasa Palisades Group of the Sierra Club. He served on the Illinois Audubon Society Board of Directors, as well as the Watershed board, and he volunteered at both Watershed and Two Rivers National Wildlife Refuge in Calhoun County.

Reed said he was working in the data processing department at SIUE when he first met McCall in 1970, helping McCall with data sets for his research in psychology. Reed became a “serious birder” in 1980, and in 1983 he attended his first meeting of the Southwest Illinois Chapter of the Audubon Society, to which the McCalls belonged.

“I was a little surprised to run into Jack, because in 1970 I had no idea he was a birder,” Reed recalled.

McCall soon recruited Reed to take part in annual spring and Christmas bird counts in Madison County.

“He was a wealth of birding knowledge,” Reed said. “I’m still in awe of his abilities to identify birds by sight and sound. So going out on counts, especially in the spring, with Jack and a couple of others was what really got me hooked big-time. Working with them, I saw birds I had never seen before. I also learned the ‘criticality’ of how valuable the bird calls were in identifying and locating birds.”

Around 1990, Reed said McCall “kind of threw me out of the nest,” telling him he was needed to help cover different parts of Madison County during the counts and to help lead other young birders.

“I would have birded with Jack for the rest of my life, just because he was a good birder and had so many skills,” Reed said. “It was a revelation every time I was with him.”

After that, Reed said he mainly saw the McCalls when they would run into each other at Watershed.

“Jack kept pointing me in the direction of working at Watershed,” Reed said.

As McCall’s health declined earlier this year, he asked Reed to take over his duty of cleaning out the bluebird nest boxes posted around Watershed. McCall then asked Reed to take his place on Watershed’s Habitat Restoration Committee.

“The timing couldn’t have been better, because I expect to retire this year,” Reed said. “I jumped at the chance. I’m the only birder on the restoration team. It will be the highlight of my retirement, and I regard it as somewhat of an honor.”

Now, as a way to honor McCall’s memory, Reed and Watershed’s new executive director, Leighanne Sanchez, are working on raising funds to build a “bird b-and-b” at the nature center. That stands for “bubbler and blind.”

“Jack’s long-term plan and vision was to find the right place out there and put in a bubbler,” Reed said. The term refers to a small fountain that attracts birds with the availability and sound of running water. “He also wanted to put in a blind for birding and photography.

“It’s my intent to work with the Habitat Restoration Committee and make that happen,” Reed said.

He said he is talking with local Scouting groups who could help construct the blind, which allows for observing birds without disturbing them.

Sanchez said Watershed already has raised about 80 percent of the $30,000 needed for the project, which is being tied into a “much larger” restoration to coincide with Watershed’s 25th anniversary next year. Watershed is partnering with the Goshen and Edwardsville Rotary Clubs and the city to raise funds for the project expected to need about $100,000.

“The bird b-and-b kind of helped launch the whole process,” she said.

Sanchez said the project would include a commemorative plaque or stand to honor McCall.

“The first stage is to engage a landscape architect, and part of that would be to help us make the proper memorial recognition placed in Jack’s honor,” she said. “The area will be recognized as ‘Jack McCall’s Welcome to Bird B-and-B.’

“It’s volunteers and nature lovers like Jack and Ginger McCall that help make the Watershed a signature feature of Edwardsville.”